Every NBA Sixth Man of the Year Winner

The NBA has named a Sixth Man of the Year every season since 1982-83 — 44 awards shared by 37 players. Only two have won it three times: Jamal Crawford and Lou Williams. The most recent winner is Keldon Johnson, who took the 2025-26 award after playing all 82 games for the San Antonio Spurs without a single start.

To qualify, a player has to come off the bench in more games than he starts. That one sentence explains most of the award's history — and most of the arguments about it.

The Award at a Glance

Every NBA Sixth Man of the Year, 1982-83 to 2025-26

Points per game is the winner's scoring average in the season he won.

This page is refreshed every spring, once the NBA announces its regular-season awards in April.

What the Award Actually Requires

The rule is short: a player must come off the bench in more games than he starts. That is the entire eligibility test.

A few consequences follow from it that surprise people:

• You can start a lot of games and still win. A player who starts 30 games out of 75 is fine. In practice, most winners start almost none — Keldon Johnson started zero in 2025-26, and Malcolm Brogdon started zero in 2022-23 — but the rule does not require it.
• There is no minutes floor and no scoring floor. Bill Walton won in 1985-86 averaging 7.6 points in 19.3 minutes a night.
• The 65-game rule does not apply. The games-played minimum the NBA introduced for the 2023-24 season covers MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, All-NBA and All-Defensive. Sixth Man of the Year, Rookie of the Year and All-Rookie were deliberately left out.

Voting works like the other regular-season awards: a global panel of media members submits first-, second- and third-place ballots, weighted 5-3-1.

Where the Award Came From

Sixth Man of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year were both introduced for the 1982-83 season. The two arrived together for the same reason — the NBA wanted trophies for contributions that a scoring title or an MVP ballot would never capture.

The first winner was a perfect statement of intent. Bobby Jones averaged 9.0 points for the Philadelphia 76ers, a team that won the 1983 championship behind Moses Malone and Julius Erving. He was honored for defense, energy and the ability to close games, not for scoring. Jones had already been a perennial All-Defensive first-team selection for years before the award existed.

The next four winners kept that shape: Kevin McHale twice, then Bill Walton in 1985-86 at 7.6 points a game on a Boston team that won the title. Walton is the only person to win league MVP (1977-78, Portland) and then a Sixth Man award later in his career. James Harden did it in the other order — Sixth Man with Oklahoma City in 2012, MVP with Houston in 2018.

In December 2022 the NBA renamed its major individual trophies after Hall of Fame players, and the Sixth Man award became the John Havlicek Trophy, honoring the Celtics wing who made a career out of changing games off the bench.

The Three-Time Winners

Two players have won it three times, and neither has ever been an All-Star:

Crawford got there first, winning his third in 2015-16 at age 36. Williams matched him three years later, and his two Clippers seasons — 22.6 points in 2017-18 and 20.0 in 2018-19 — are the two highest scoring averages by a Sixth Man winner in the last 35 years.

Three players have won twice: Kevin McHale (back-to-back, 1984 and 1985), Ricky Pierce (1987 and 1990) and Detlef Schrempf (back-to-back, 1991 and 1992). Nobody has won four.

Sixth Men Who Became Something Else

The award is often treated as a consolation prize. The list argues otherwise.

• Kevin McHale won it in his third and fourth seasons, then moved into Boston's starting lineup and became a seven-time All-Star and a Hall of Famer.
• James Harden won it in 2012, was traded to Houston that October, and went on to win the 2018 MVP and three scoring titles.
• Manu Ginóbili won in 2008 as the sixth man on a San Antonio team built around him, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker; he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2022, and Duncan's name shows up three times on the Finals MVP list.
• Detlef Schrempf and Antawn Jamison each became multiple-time All-Stars after winning.
• Tyler Herro won in 2021-22 and made his first All-Star team in 2025.
• Toni Kukoč won in 1995-96 on the 72-win Bulls, one of three championships he won in Chicago — see the full list of NBA champions by year.

Two players have won both Rookie of the Year and Sixth Man of the Year: Mike Miller (Rookie of the Year in 2001, Sixth Man in 2006) and Malcolm Brogdon (2017 and 2023). Brogdon's Sixth Man season is a useful reference point for what voters now reward — he led all non-starters at 14.9 points a game and logged more minutes than any player in the league who did not start a single game. The complete Rookie of the Year list has both of them.

The Criticism: Does It Just Reward Volume Scoring?

The most common complaint about Sixth Man of the Year is that it has drifted from Bobby Jones's version of the job — defense, versatility, closing lineups — toward whoever scores the most points off a bench.

The case study most often cited is Jamal Crawford's third win in 2015-16. He averaged 14.2 points on 40.4 percent shooting and 34 percent from three, posted a player efficiency rating of 14.04, and the Clippers were 6.9 points worse per 100 possessions with him on the floor. Critics at the time argued that Andre Iguodala — a defensive wing on a 73-win Golden State team, and the previous year's Finals MVP — had the far stronger case.

The structural problem is that the award has always been decided by a national media panel that mostly sees box scores and highlights. Bench scoring is easy to see. A reserve big man holding a second unit together defensively is not.

That said, the recent voting has moved back the other way. The last four winners — Brogdon (14.9), Naz Reid (13.5), Payton Pritchard (14.3) and Keldon Johnson (13.2) — all averaged under 15 points, the longest such run since 1996-97 through 2001-02. All four were on winning teams, and all four were valued for what their second units did rather than for shot volume. Whether that lasts is another question; a 22-point scorer off the bench has never had trouble getting votes.

Keldon Johnson, 2025-26

Johnson won the 2025-26 award on April 23, 2026, ahead of Miami's Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Denver's Tim Hardaway Jr.

His season was an extreme version of the job description. He played all 82 games and started none of them — only the second player in the last decade to do that — and scored 1,081 points as a reserve, a San Antonio franchise record and the first 1,000-point bench season in Spurs history. His 13.2 points per game came in a role he had to be talked into: he had been a starter in San Antonio as recently as a few seasons earlier.

He is the second Spur to win the award, after Manu Ginóbili in 2008. San Antonio also produced the 2025-26 Defensive Player of the Year in Victor Wembanyama and reached the NBA Finals that June, losing 4-1 to the New York Knicks. For how a roster gets built to support that kind of bench depth, see how many players are on an NBA roster.

FAQ

Who won the most recent NBA Sixth Man of the Year award? Keldon Johnson of the San Antonio Spurs, for 2025-26. He averaged 13.2 points in 82 games without a single start.

What are the rules for Sixth Man of the Year? A player must come off the bench in more games than he starts. There is no minimum for minutes, scoring or games played, and the NBA's 65-game rule does not apply to this award.

Who has won Sixth Man of the Year the most times? Jamal Crawford and Lou Williams, with three each. Kevin McHale, Ricky Pierce and Detlef Schrempf have two apiece.

When did the NBA start the Sixth Man of the Year award? The 1982-83 season, the same year the league introduced Defensive Player of the Year. Bobby Jones of the champion Philadelphia 76ers was the first winner.

Who is the Sixth Man trophy named after? John Havlicek. The NBA renamed and redesigned its major individual awards in December 2022, and the Sixth Man trophy took the name of the Celtics wing who defined the role.

Has a Sixth Man of the Year ever won MVP? Yes, in both directions. Bill Walton won MVP in 1977-78 and Sixth Man in 1985-86; James Harden won Sixth Man in 2011-12 and MVP in 2017-18.

Who scored the most points per game in a Sixth Man of the Year season? Ricky Pierce, at 23.0 points a game for Milwaukee in 1989-90. Lou Williams is next at 22.6 in 2017-18. The lowest is Bill Walton's 7.6 in 1985-86.

Has anyone won both Rookie of the Year and Sixth Man of the Year? Two players: Mike Miller (2001 and 2006) and Malcolm Brogdon (2017 and 2023).